Poignant release of pictures to mark cockling anniversary

An artist has created intimate portraits of the 23 Chinese cocklers that died in Morecambe Bay.

The passport size pen drawings done by Morecambrian Jonathan Greenbank of the men and women who died in the cockling tragedy ten years ago will be released into the water from Red Bank in Bolton-le-Sands.

Jonathan, who is the only artist from Merseyside included in the reputedHannah directory, said: “I found those who left orphans or were never recovered, particularly harrowing.

“The case of the victim whose face we will never know, desperate.

“The stories of the two younger men, one of whom had gone away to get money to build his family a home, just awful. The fact these were often passport photographs, a moment many feel excited about and dress their best for, makes the whole thing all the sadder.

“These images should literally have been their ticket to a brighter future, instead they are almost like a death mask.

“One can only imagine the knock on effect on the devastated families, children, whole villages, and what they must make of the UK, Liverpool and most specifically Morecambe, a far away place for them that offered hope and now only tragedy, a local attraction for us that brought us sunshine, Frontierland, fortune tellers, fish and chips.

“This wasn’t about me, it was about the lives of others, on the other side of the world, whose loss their loved ones might never come to terms with yet I for one only acknowledge now, ten years after the event, and for that – and for them – I am truly sorry.” The twenty three will be released back into the sea from Red Bank over the summer. Later in the year there will be an exhibition of the drawings in Lancaster.

This website and its associated newspaper adheres to the Independent Press Standards Organisation's Editors' Code of Practice.
If you have a complaint about editorial content which relates to inaccuracy or intrusion, then contact the
Editor by clicking here.

If you remain dissatisfied with the response provided then you can contact the IPSO by
clicking here.

The visitor provides news, events and sport features from the Morecambe area. For the best up to date information relating to Morecambe and the surrounding areas visit us at The visitor regularly or bookmark this page.

For you to enjoy all the features of this website The visitor requires permission to use cookies.

Find Out More ▼

What is a Cookie?

What is a Flash Cookie?

Can I opt out of receiving Cookies?

About our Cookies

Cookies are small data files which are sent to your browser (Internet Explorer, Firefox, Chrome etc) from a website you visit. They are stored on your electronic device.

This is a type of cookie which is collected by Adobe Flash media player (it is also called a Local Shared Object) - a piece of software you may already have on your electronic device to help you watch online videos and listen to podcasts.

Yes there are a number of options available, you can set your browser either to reject all cookies, to allow only "trusted" sites to set them, or to only accept them from the site you are currently on.

However, please note - if you block/delete all cookies, some features of our websites, such as remembering your login details, or the site branding for your local newspaper may not function as a result.

The types of cookies we, our ad network and technology partners use are listed below:

Revenue Science ►

A tool used by some of our advertisers to target adverts to you based on pages you have visited in the past. To opt out of this type of targeting you can visit the 'Your Online Choices' website by clicking here.

Google Ads ►

Our sites contain advertising from Google; these use cookies to ensure you get adverts relevant to you. You can tailor the type of ads you receive by visiting here or to opt out of this type of targeting you can visit the 'Your Online Choices' website by clicking here.

Digital Analytics ►

This is used to help us identify unique visitors to our websites. This data is anonymous and we cannot use this to uniquely identify individuals and their usage of the sites.

Dart for Publishers ►

This comes from our ad serving technology and is used to track how many times you have seen a particular ad on our sites, so that you don't just see one advert but an even spread. This information is not used by us for any other type of audience recording or monitoring.

ComScore ►

ComScore monitor and externally verify our site traffic data for use within the advertising industry. Any data collected is anonymous statistical data and cannot be traced back to an individual.

Local Targeting ►

Our Classified websites (Photos, Motors, Jobs and Property Today) use cookies to ensure you get the correct local newspaper branding and content when you visit them. These cookies store no personally identifiable information.

Grapeshot ►

We use Grapeshot as a contextual targeting technology, allowing us to create custom groups of stories outside out of our usual site navigation. Grapeshot stores the categories of story you have been exposed to. Their privacy policy and opt out option can be accessed here.

Subscriptions Online ►

Our partner for Newspaper subscriptions online stores data from the forms you complete in these to increase the usability of the site and enhance user experience.

Add This ►

Add This provides the social networking widget found in many of our pages. This widget gives you the tools to bookmark our websites, blog, share, tweet and email our content to a friend.